Entities with substantial printing demands typically implement a high-speed production printer for volume printing (e.g., one hundred pages per minute or more). Production printers may include continuous-forms printers that print on a web of print media stored on a large roll. A production printer typically includes a localized print controller that controls the overall operation of the printing system, and a print engine that includes one or more printhead assemblies, where each assembly includes a printhead controller and a printhead (or array of printheads).
Recently, the establishment of infrastructures called cloud services in which services are provided by a server system connected to the Internet, has been in progress. Print services for printing over the Internet have also been provided. The services offer functions of generating and distributing print data with a server on the Internet in response to user interaction via a cloud application. Now, systems that provide such print services by using the aforementioned Cloud are being developed.
Such systems typically implement a communication interface. For instance, Job Definition Format (JDF), and its complementary messaging format, Job Messaging Format (JMF)) is fast becoming the communication of choice for various systems in a print production workflow. These systems include printers, inserters, folders, cutters, and printing software. However, the systems must also communicate with external systems that may implement other communication protocols. For example, external system clients may implement other JDF versions since there is no common JDF format among print system vendors.
Moreover, clients may access the cloud to request print services via other communication protocols, such as web services. Web services allow for information to be passed from one system to another with various metadata languages (e.g., Extensible Markup Language (XML), JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) messaging). Currently the only way to communicate with external system clients implementing web services, or other forms of JDF, via JMF is to generate a customized interface to communicate with the software language supported by each different system. However, generating different interfaces for each system is inefficient and results in unnecessary costs.
Accordingly, an application interface mechanism that provides a single interface to support various external system language formats is desired.